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THE  MODERN  LIBRARY 

OF  THE  WORLD'S  BEST  BOOKS 


THE  ART  OF  RODIN 


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PORTRAIT   OF  RODIN 
By  Steichen 


THE  ART  OF  RODIN 


Introduction  by  LOUIS  WEINBERG 


BONI   AND  LIVERIGHT 


PUBLISHERS        .-.       .-.        NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1918,  by 

BONI  &  LiVERIGHT,  InC. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  Art  of   Rodin 15 

Illustrations  .    .    , 39 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

1.  Portrait  of   Rodin   (by   Steichen).     Frontispiece. 

2.  The  Hand  of  God. 

3.  The  Bronze  Age. 

4.  Adam. 

5.  Eve. 

6.  Prodigal  Son. 

7.  The  Soul  and  the  Body. 

8.  Eternal  Spring. 

9.  The  Danaide. 

10.  "La  Pensee." 

11.  George  Bernard  Shaw 

12.  Xude  Study. 

13.  The  Eternal  Idol. 

14.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Girl. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

15.  The  Broken  Lily. 

16.  The  Tempest. 

17.  Head  of  Minerva. 

18.  Eve. 

19.  Orpheus  and  Euridyce. 

20.  The  Old  Courtesan. 

21.  The  Old  Courtesan. 

22.  Minerva. 

23.  Victor  Hugo. 

24.  Bust  of  Victor  Hugo. 

25.  Metamorphosis  According  to  Ovid. 

26.  Portrait  of  Mrs.  X. 

27.  Bust  of  the  Countess  of  W. 

28.  Portrait  of  Madame  Morla  Vicunha, 

29.  Psyche. 

30.  The  Poet  and  the  Muses, 

31.  Ugolino  and  his  Children. 

10 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

32.  The  Village  Fiancee. 

33.  The  Adieu. 

34.  The  Bath. 

35.  The  Kiss. 

36.  The  Thinker. 

37.  The  Tower  of  Labor, 

38.  The  Bather. 

39.  Bastien-Le  Page. 

40.  Doubt. 
4L  Caryatid. 

42.  The  Headless  Figure. 

43.  The  Alan  with  the  Broken  Nose. 

44.  The  Poet  and  the  Muse. 

45.  Romeo  and   Tuliet. 

46.  Stud}-  of  a  Hand. 

47.  Hand. 

48.  St.  John,  the  Baptist. 

11 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

49.  Head  of  St.  John.! 

50.  The  Acrobat. 
5L  Fugit  Amor. 

52.  The  Embrace. 

53.  Study  of  Head  of  Balzac. 

54.  The  Balzac  Statue. 

55.  Statue  of  Balzac  (Photograph  by  Steichen). 

56.  The  Burghers  of  Calais. 

57.  The  Burgher  of  Calais. 

58.  Head  of  Burgher  of  Calais. 

59.  Eustache    De    St.    Pierre    (From    the    Burgher    of 

Calais). 

60.  Portrait  of  Rodin. 

61.  Drawing  by  Rodin. 

62.  Design  by  Rodin. 

63.  Sketch  by  Rodin. 

64.  Wash-Drawing  by  Rodin. 

65.  Wash-Drawing  by  Rodin. 

1? 


THE  ART  OF  RODIN 

AN  ESSAY  BY 

LOUIS    WEINBERG 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

In  the  year  1877  Auguste  Rodin,  then  thirty-seven 
years  of  age,  exhibited  at  the  Salon  in  Paris  for  the 
first  time.  Eleven  years  earlier  he  had  submitted  the 
head  of  "The  Man  With  a  Broken  Nose,"  but  that  had 
been  rejectfed.  At  last,  after  having  studied  since  he  was 
a  boy  and  having  earned  his  living  at  sculpture  as  an 
anonymous  assistant  to  others,  he  appeared  before  the 
critics  and  public  of  Paris,  his  native  city,  with  the  full- 
length  figure  of  "The  Man  of  the  Age  of  Bronze." 

Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  nothing  eventful. 
Of  his  parents  little  has  been  written  except  that  his 
father,  a  Norman,  was  a  clerk  in  the  Central  Police 
Office  in  Paris,  and  that  his  mother,  of  Lorraine  origin, 
helped  through  her  sacrifices  to  enable  him  to  attend 
boarding  school  as.  a  child.  At  fourteen  he  was  sent  for 
drawing  lessons  to  a  school  in  the  Latin  quarter,  where 
he  discovered  his  calling  in  the  modelling  class.  From 
that  day,  it  was  a  story  of  almost  unintermittent  work. 
During  the  three  years  spent  at  the  school  he  also  drew 
from  the  antique  at  the  Louvre,  studied  and  copied 
prints  in  the  Imperial  Library,  and  practised  memory 
drawing  at  home  in  the  evenings.  Then  followed  a 
course  of  lessons  under  Barye,  the  famous  animal  sculp- 
tor, after  which  he  applied  to  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts, 
which  three  times  in  succession  refused  to  enter  him 
upon  its  rolls. 

After   that   all   formal   study  in   school   and   under- 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

masters  ceased.  Rodin  became  a  workman,  but  more 
than  ever  a  student.  At  first  he  worked  for  a  house 
decorator,  designing  mouldings.  Later  he  was  employed 
by  Carriere  Belleuse,  one  of  the  successful  sculptors 
of  the  day,  who  received  many  commissions  for  the 
decorative  features  of  public  buildings.  For  him  he 
worked  in  Paris  and  after  the  War  of  1870  in  Brussels 
with  the  exception  of  two  brief  tours,  one  to  Italy  to 
see  the  works  of  Angelo,  the  other  through  Northern 
France  to  study  the  cathedrals. 

His  life  now  almost  half  spent,  the  statue  into  which 
he  had  wrought  all  that  he  had  learned  in  those  many 
years  of  search  and  study  was  on  exhibition  and  Rodin 
awaited  the  result.  The  plaster  cast  modelled  from 
a  simple  young  soldier  in  Belgium  represented  a  per- 
fectly fashioned  figure  in  the  full  vigor  of  grace  and 
youth,  one  hand  clenched  to  his  head,  the  other  hold- 
ing an  outstretched  staff.  "The  Man  Awakening  to 
Nature"  was  its  title  at  one  time,  as  it  seemed  to 
Rodin  to  express  the  dawning  sense  of  the  beauty  of 
the  world  almost  dazzling  the  young  wanderer  through 
life.  It  was  a  symbol  of  Rodin's  own  awakening  to 
the   intimate  beauty  of  the   world  about  him. 

To  the  critics  who  saw  it  at  the  Salon  it  evinced 
no  such  poetic  suggestions.  The  statue  commanded 
their  attention  and  received  it.  But  the  verdict  when 
it  came  was  a  staggering  one.  It  was  charged  that 
the  statue  was  a  fraud,  made  from  a  mechanical  mould 
obtained  by  the  direct  application  of  plaster  to  the 
figure  of  the  model.  A  similar  charge  had  been  made 
•in  Brussels  when  the  statue  was  shown  there,  but  an 
indignant  reply  by  Rodin  at  the  time  had  apparently 
16 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

laid  low  the  rumor.  Whether  or  not  the  Parisian  charge 
was  based  on  a  knowledge  of  the  Brussels  criticism 
or  was  independently  arrived  at  is  not  known,  but  the 
fact  remains  that  Rodin  found  himself  under  a  cloud 
of  suspicion,  which  nothing  he  could  do  at  the  time 
sufficed  to  remove.  Although  he  succeeded  in  securing 
an  investigation  of  the  charrre  by  a  jury,  the  non- 
committal report  which  they  made  in  the  matter  did 
not  help  him.  A  year  later,  however,  he  was  cleared 
through  the  petition  of  seven  sculptors  moved  to  in- 
tercede in  his  behalf,  because  quite  by  accident  one 
of  their  number  had  the  opportunity  to  observe  Rodin 
at  work  in  the  studio  of  Belleuse  and  realized  from 
the  marvellous  facility  which  Rodin  displayed,  that  the 
charge  of  fraud  was  an  injustice.  Two  years  later,  in 
the  spirit  of  atonement,  the  State  awarded  Rodin  a 
medal  of  the  third  class  for  the  very  statue  which  had 
been  so  libelled  and  for  his  "St.  John,  the  Baptist," 
both  of  which  were  bought  for  the  Luxembourg. 

The  forty  years  following  this  sensation  (Rodin 
died  in  1917)  were  marked  by  one  long  series  of  con- 
troversies, during  which  his  art  became  the  most  vio- 
lently hated  and  the  most  ardently  admired  in  all  Eu- 
rope. His  "St.  John,  the  Baptist,"  represented  in  the 
act  of  walking,  as  if  propelled  by  the  message  upon 
his  lips,  was  denounced  as  a  violation  of  a  first  prin- 
ciple in  sculpture.  Sculpture  is  in  a  sense  architectural 
ornament  and  should,  like  the  building  itself,  stand 
still,  the  critics  admonished.  And  the  public  laughed 
at  the  thought  of  a  statue  which  looked  as  though  it 
might  walk  away.  The  "Genius  of  War"  in  1880  vio- 
lated another  principle  of  sculpture,  it  was  claimed. 
17 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

It  was  exuberant  and  too  violent  in  expression.  Sculp- 
ture, the  critics  insisted,  must  always  maintain  a  cer- 
tain restraint,  which  Rodin  in  his  eagerness  for  sensa- 
tion had  failed  to  observe. 

His  work  was  rejected  in  London,  in  1886,  by  the  Royal 
Academy,  at  which  time  Rodin  was  called  the  "Zola 
of  Sculpture"  in  the  English  press.  The  charge  in  this 
case,  repeated  in  Chicago  in  1893,  was  a  failure  to  ob- 
serve the  decencies  which  the  best  traditions  of  sculp- 
ture impose.  At  Chicago,  where  his  works  had  been 
invited,  his  statue  of  "The  Kiss"  was  put  into  a  pri- 
vate room,  where  it  could  be  seen  only  by  special  re- 
quest. In  the  London  episode  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
met  the  charge  against  Rodin  by  a  spirited  letter  to 
the  Times.  In  Sweden,  as  late  as  1897,  at  the  Inter- 
national Exhibition  at  Stockholm,  there  was  another 
of  the  storms  which  Rodin's  art  precipitated,  ending 
in  the  virtually  unanimous  declination  by  the  Museum 
Commission  of  a  gift  which  Rodin  offered  it.. 

But  the  bitterest  episode  in  Rodin's  career,  the  occa- 
sion of  the  most  virulent  criticism,  resembling  in  a  way 
the  controversy  over  the  Barnard  Lincoln,  was  the 
"Affaire  Balzac,"  as  it  has  since  been  called.  A  statue 
of  Balzac  which  he  designed  on  a  commission  was 
received  with  such  a  chorus  of  angry  disapproval  that 
it  almost  broke  his  mighty  spirit. 

What  was  the  secret  of  this  opposition  which  Rodin's 
art  evoked?  At  one  time  called  a  cheat  because  of  his 
virtuoso  cleverness  in  representing  the  form,  he  is 
later  called  an  incompetent  who  hides  his  inability 
under  a  vague  dressing  gown.  At  another  time  called  an 
iconoclastic  breaker  of  traditions,  he  is  then  dubbed  a 
18 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

mere  imitator  of  Angelo  in  the  exaggeration  of  his 
modelling,  or  of  the  Greeks  in  his  deliberately  "dismem- 
bered bodies."  Accused  of  realistic  ugliness,  of  mor- 
bidity, of  eroticism,  of  an  unrestrained  fancy,  of  de- 
liberate sensationalism,  he  is  later  found  guilty  of  a 
geometrician's  interest  in  sheer  abstraction,  in  meaning- 
less patterns. 

It  has  been  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  art  in  the  last 
hundred  years  that  with  rarely  an  exception  the  out- 
standing figures  have  like  Rodin  been  the  objects  of 
violent  attack.  A  musical  virtuoso  reproducing  the  ac- 
cepted masterpieces  evokes  a  unanimous  chorus  of 
praise.  A  Rodin,  a  Monet,  an  Ibsen,  a  Whitman  in- 
terpreting life  in  terms  of  their  own  fresh  reactions 
to  it  are  demons  in  Parnassus  to  one  section  of  critics, 
artists  and  public,  gods  to  another.  For,  towards  the 
end,  Rodin  was  an  exalted  hero.  There  were  episodes 
like  the  ones  in  London,  and  in  Prague  when  the  horses 
of  Rodin's  carriage  were  unharnessed  by  the  students 
and  artists  who  drew  him  through  the  streets  in  tri- 
umph, the  occasion  when  his  "Thinker"  was  placed  as  a 
public  monument  upon  the  steps  of  the  Pantheon,  and 
the  final  victory  of  his  career  which  came  when  the 
French  Government  stopped  in  its  war  deliberations 
long  enough  to  discuss  and  take  favorable  action  on  the 
project  of  making  Rodin's  studio  and  the  works  in  it 
a  governmental  museum. 

If  the  art  of  Rodin  is  examined  it  will  be  found 
that  he,  like  the  other  great  stylistic  interpreters  of 
life  in  the  last  century,  offended  the  rank  and  file  of 
critics  and  public  because  he  created  what  was  virtually 
a  new  manner,  new  not  as  against  the  great  traditions 
19 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

of  the  past  but  new  as  compared  with  the  pretty 
rhetoric,  the  cheap  flubdub,  the  insincere  pose,  the  rose- 
tinted  lie,  the  myopic  vision,  which  could  see  beauty 
only  in  a  minutely  painstaking  and  polished  "fin- 
ish," the  hyperopic  vision,  which  could  see  beauty  only 
in  a  theme  taken  from  the  remote  past  or  from  the  dis- 
tant corners  of  the  earth.  Rodin,  like  the  other  modern 
masters,  and  like  the  great  old  masters,  discovered 
beauty  in  the  intimate,  the  immediate,  the  familiar  and 
therefore  the  unobserved  aspects  of  life.  Though  Ro- 
din was  neither  a  "modern"  nor  an  "ultra-modern,"  he 
was  hated  from  the  start  by  the  Academy  which,  in  its 
attempt  to  institutionalize  beauty,  had  created  a  body 
of  rigid  formulae  false  both  to  art  and  life.  Rodin 
did  not  observe  these  rules.  But  he  was  not  consciously 
a  revolutionist.  Not  even  unconsciously  has  he  been  a 
breaker  of  traditions.  Rodin  is  much  closer  to  the 
Egyptians,  the  archaic  Greeks,  the  Chinese,  who  felt 
the  beauty  of  the  form  and  fashioned  it  like  craftsmen 
who  love  the  stuff  they  work  with,  than  were  the  aca- 
demic idealists  who  fought  him  in  the  name  of  the 
"sacred  traditions   of  the  past." 

Rodin's  art  was  at  one  with  all  great  art  in  its 
directness  of  inspiration.  The  nude  is  in  a  sense  an 
anachronism,  and  it  was  almost  inevitable  that  the  feel- 
ing for  the  beauty  of  the  body  in  its  free  movements 
should  have  been  lost  and  forgotten,  even  amongst 
sculptors.  For  the  Greeks,  who  saw  the  body  nude  or 
lightly  draped,  the  figure  was  as  expressive  as  the  face 
ot  an  emotional  person.  But  to-day  the  academic  sculp- 
tor models  an  attitude  from  selected  figures,  using  the 
bust  ot  one,  the  legs  of  another,  the  arms  of  a  third, 

20 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

the  head  of  a  fourth.  Rodin,  like  the  Greeks,  saw  beauty 
in  the  simple  natural  movements  of  the  body.  This 
made  him  seem  a  revolutionist,  but  the  respect  for  the 
grace  of  the  body's  gesture  consistent  in  all  its  lines 
is  as  old  as  all  great  sculpture.  Few,  however,  were 
as  willing  as  Rodin  to  let  life  surprise  them  with  the 
variety  of  its  movement  and   mood. 

But  though  Rodin  even  in  the  "Man  of  the  Age  of 
Bronze"  had  already  realized  the  importance  of  direct- 
ness of  inspiration  in  catching  the  beauty  of  the  figure 
in  action,  he  later  spoke  of  that  work  as  cold;  for  he 
had  become  sensitive  to  certain  aspects  of  nature  and 
of  his  problem  as  craftsman,  which  he  endeavored  - 
to  solve  through  fresh  moulding  his  material  to  his 
purpose.  Style  is  a  man's  way  of  expressing  the  thing 
he  feels.  Rodin  became  sensitive  to  the  ripple  of  light 
upon  the  surface  of  the  figure,  to  the  luminous  glow 
which  emanates  from  the  nude,  to  the  charm  given  to 
the  form  by  the  ambient  air  which  bathes  it.  It  is  quite 
likely  that  his  vision  was  quickened  in  this  respect  by 
the  impressionist  interest  in  atmosphere,  and  by  the 
mist-enveloped  portrait  groups  of  his  painter  friend, 
Carriere. 

Rodin  could  not  express  the  luminosity  which  he  felt 
in  nature,  the  all-pervading  light  which  playing  upon 
surfaces  transforms  them  without  so  modifying  his 
earlier  technique  as  to  create  his  later  style.  He  began 
deliberately  to  modulate  the  surfaces  as  he  modelled 
them  in  such  manner  as  to  suggest  the  play  of  light 
without  sacrificing  what  is  proper  to  sculpture,  the 
pleasure  of  mass  and  volume.  In  a  sense,  just  as  the 
correct  local  coloring  of  the  earlier  landscape  painters 
21 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

gave  way  to  the  modified  hues  as  influenced  by  light 
so  that  trees  were  no  longer  brown  of  trunk  and  green 
of  foliage,  but  ran  a  color  gamut  from  gray  to  violet, 
so  in  Rodin  the  correct  local  modelling  of  the  older 
schools  gave  way  to  atmospheric  modelling.  He  sought 
not  the  structure  as  it  would  reveal  itself  to  the  eye 
of  a  dissecting  anatomist,  but  the  form  as  it  would 
be  seen  in  the  reflection  and  refraction  of  light.  It 
is  this  luminosity  which  is  in  large  measure  accountable 
for  the  appeal  of  heads  like  La  Pensee,  his  portrait 
heads  of  women,  as  well  as  many  of  his  later  figure  com- 
positions. Though  Christian  sculpture  under  the  influence 
of  painting  and  its  own  inherent  ideals  had  softened 
edges  to  heighten  by  suggestion  the  expression  of  mys- 
tery through  eyes  lost  in  shadow,  the  problem  of  lumi- 
nosity in  marble  and  in  bronze  received  its  fullest  study 
in   Rodin's  art. 

Another  phase  of  'Rodin's  stylistic  development,  re- 
lated in  part  to  the  former,  was  his  policy  of  delib- 
erate exaggeration  or  "deformation,"  as  he  called  it,  in 
the  interest  of  a  more  positive  expressiveness  in  the 
action  as  well  as  in  the  light  and  dark  of  the  figure. 
If  while  preserving  the  sensuous  appeal  of  light-swept 
atmospherically-bathed  forms,  the  emotional  power  of 
the  marble  is  to  be  enhanced,  he  realized  that  sugges- 
tion rather  than  frigidity  of  statement  is  to  be  em- 
ployed. Rodin  conceived  each  statue  in  terms  of  a 
simple  dominant  expressive  action  in  which  all  the 
parts  swing  together  in  response  to  a  common  impulse. 
Emphasis,  exaggeration,  a  marked  insistence  on  this 
central  action  in  which  details  intensify  interest,  will 
best  serve  to  stimulate  the  imagination  and  to  convey 

22 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

the  mood  of  the  action.  Therefore,  the  dominant  gesture 
of  "The  Balzac,"  to  which  every  other  consideration  was 
so  subordinated  as  to  give  the  maximum  force  to  the 
backward  thrown  head  and  figure;  "The  Tempest,"  in 
which  with  the  most  exquisite  finish  and  variety  of 
surface  texture  and  silvery  light,  every  detail  intensifies 
the  expression  of  gray  wind-swept  passion;  "The  Eve," 
in  which  every  surface,  seen  from  whatever  angle,  is 
controlled  by  the  simple  shrinking  gesture  of  that  body 
so  soft  and  fleshy  and  warm,  so  sensitively  troubled 
before  the  gaze  of  Adam. 

To  talk  of  Rodin's  sympathetic  vision,  his  sensitive- 
ness to  light,  his  perception  of  the  unity  of  action  in 
the  body  is  all  beside  the  mark  if  one  fails  to  enjoy  in 
Rodin  the  craftsman,  who  loved  his  material,  and 
moulded  it  to  his  will.  "Sculpture  is  the  art  of  the 
hole  and  the  lump,"  as  Rodin  bluntly  puts  it.  Working 
with  marble  or  with  bronze  he  evokes  from  them  a 
wealth  of  effects. 

In  textures  his  sculpture  presents  a  varied  surface  of 
broad  smooth  planes  catching  luscious  high  lights,  con- 
trasting with  soft  roughly-grained  areas  trembling  in 
half  tone,  these  again  giving  way  to  recesses  of  softened 
shadow  from  which  glints  of  subdued  light  glow.  The 
material  is  not  disguised,  but  its  capacity  for  enchanting 
the  eye  is  thoroughly  exploited. 

In  recording  movement  his  honest  craftsman  attitude 
led  him  to  unceasing  records  of  action  caught  on  the 
wing.  Those  who  have  drawn  from  life  know  how  far 
removed  are  the  studio  poses  from  the  natural  gestures 
of  the  body.  These  gestures,  many  as  fleeting  as  a 
glance,  Rodin  fixed  in  swift  sketches  pinched  in  clay,  or 
23 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

in  pen  and  wash  drawings  of  which  he  made  many 
thousands. 

In  the  rendering  of  volume,  the  character  and  im- 
pressiveness  of  bulk,  he  learned  quite  early  from  a 
fellow-workman  the  principle  which  he  applied  with 
the  most  painstaking  thoroughness  throughout  his  life. 
Having  conceived  the  dominant  action,  the  actual  tran- 
scription from  life  to  art  was  to  be  undertaken  from 
a  succession  of  profiles.  The  true  mass,  as  well  as  the 
ripple  or  wave  movement  of  its  surfaces,  he  studied 
from  a  great  number  of  angles,  not  only  from  all  sides 
but  from  above  and  from  below.  The  completed  sur- 
face, with  all  its  play  of  texture  and  plane,  conveyed 
as  a  result  the  effect  of  a  mass  organically  related  to 
its  core.  An  apple  modelled  in  this  way  would  be  more 
suggestive  of  the  bulk  of  a  mountainside  than  a  moun- 
tain modelled  in  the  more  conventional  way  from  just 
one  of  its  profiles. 

There  are  those  who  love  the  art  of  Rodin  and  who 
bring  to  his  work  a  generously  sympathetic  response. 
There  are  those  who  are  pleased  by  his  work,  but  who 
give  it  only  a  passing  consideration,  so  that  they  have 
enjoyed  in  a  casual  sort  of  way  their  occasional  glimpse 
of  a  Rodin  statue.  There  are  those  who  find  "The 
Kiss,"  "The  Bronze  Age"  and  other  of  his  more 
smoothly  finished  creations  agreeable,  but  who  object 
to  and  quite  positively  dislike  the  rough-hewn  ones. 
There  are  still  many  others  who  regard  Rodin's  work  as 
absolutely  repugnant,  morbid,  ugly  and  perverse.  The 
lovers  of  Rodin  need  no  intermediary;  his  violent 
opponents  will  brook  none.  But  those  who  have  given 
him  only  a  passing  consideration  may  welcome  an  at- 
24 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

tempt  to   meet  some  of  the  typical  difficulties  which 
many  experience  in  their  first  contact  with  Rodin. 

It  may  seem  presumptuous  for  the  critic  to  attempt 
to  answer  for  the  sculptor.  Are  there  not  the  works 
themselves?  What  more  need  be  said?  But  from  this 
point  of  view  even  a  biographical  statement  is  super- 
fluous for  the  statues  are  complete  in  themselves,  and 
either  will  awaken  a  response  or  not.  In  the  mighty 
cycles  of  time  some  future  age  may  dig  up  Rodin's  work 
from  beneath  the  ashes  of  the  civilization  of  to-day  and 
find  itself  without  props  of  any  kind,  with  nothing  but 
the  statues.  These  will  then  be  accepted  and  admired  or 
rejected  and  destroyed  by  virtue  of  their  own  inherent 
power  over  the  surprised  gaze  of  man.  The  critic  who 
comes  between  the  public  and  the  work  of  art  is  per- 
forming a  doubtful  service,  but  since  the  fine  art  of 
seeing  is  so  little  cultivated  there  may  be  an  excuse  for 
a  certain  amount  of  explanation  aimed  at  the  stimulation 
of  the  habit  of  observation.  Since  so  many  permit  art 
theories  to  stand  between  them  and  vision,  it  frequently 
becomes  essential  that  criticism  break  down  the  pre- 
conceived notions  of  beauty  which  act  like  drawn  shades 
between  the  world  and  genius.  A  few  of  the  typical 
reactions  of  those  of  hasty  vision  or  of  preconceived  art 
theories  in  the  presence  of  the  works  of  Rodin  are 
these:  "Why  does  Rodin  exaggerate  so?  His  heads  of 
men  look  like  caricatures."  "Why  does  Rodin  choose  an 
ugly  theme  like  'The  Old  Courtesan'?"  "Isn't  there 
enough  ugliness  in  the  world  without  adding  to  it  by 
the  perpetuation  of  an  ugly  figure  in  bronze?"  "Why 
doesn't  Rodin  finish  his  work  instead  of  leaving  off  with 
a  rough  sketch,  as  in  'The  Balzac'?"  "Why  does  Rodin 
25 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

ignore  correct  proportions  in  his  figures,  the  arms  of 
'The  Old  Courtesan'  seem  a  mile  too  long?" 

The  sophisticated  reader  may  here  lose  patience.  His 
attitude  is  that  such  people  do  not  matter.  But  they 
do,  for  they  form  part  of  the  general  taste,  and  are  a 
force  for  good  or  evil.  The  true  artist  may  ignore 
them.  He  must  ignore  them.  But  the  critic  should  re- 
member that  only  as  the  great  mass  feels  beauty  more 
directly  will  genius  achieve  its  fullest  opportunity  for 
fruition.  It  is  the  critic's  duty  to  point  out  to  the 
honest  Philistines  that  they  are  standing  in  their  own 
light  creating  obscurity  through  the  shadows  they  them- 
selves cast,  and  that  they  must  give  themselves  the 
opportunity  to  form  their  judgments  through  that  in- 
timacy and  communion  without  which  there  can  be 
no  true  contact  with  either  nature  or  art. 

For  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  eye  has  a  dual 
function,  and  that  discriminating  vision  is  a  develop- 
ment and  not  a  common  gift.  The  eye  has  been  called 
the  organ  of  anticipatory  touch,  and  biologically  it  was 
no  doubt  developed  to  help  lead  man  to  his  food  and 
to  his  mate  and  to  serve  him  generally  in  the  struggle 
for  existence.  As  Bergson  puts  it,  "our  perception  is 
tied  to  our  action."  Even  in  the  more  complex  modern 
life,  most  people  still  use  their  eyes  only  in  so  far  as 
seeing  is  essential  to  self-preservation  and  well  being. 
Quite  undeveloped  is  the  secondary  function  of  the 
eye  as  a  window  through  which  man  looks  out  upon  the 
kaleidoscopic  phenomena  of  nature. 

The  true  artist  is  he  who  possesses  this  quality  of 
sympathetic   vision,   seeing  the  world   in  its   endlessly 
varied  pattern  and  in  the  inexhaustible  variety  of  its 
26 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

inflections  and  moods.  But  it  is  not  enough  that  the 
artist  be  sensitive  to  the  beauty  of  the  world  about 
him,  he  must  also  be  the  master  of  his  material,  skilled 
in  controlling  his  marble,  pigment,  action  or  the  spoken 
word  to  convey  something  of  the  glamour  which  he 
finds  in  the  world.  To  test  the  vision  of  the  artist  by 
the  general  lack  of  vision  is  to  assume  that  disinter- 
ested seeing  is  common.  To  denounce  the  artist's  style 
or  manner  of  using  his  material  if  this  seems  strange 
and  contrary  to  habit,  without  first  endeavoring  to  see 
whether  some  new  sensitiveness  did  not  make  that 
style  necessary,  is  to  miss  the  point  of  art  expression. 
For  the  vision  of  most  people  is  primarily  practical ; 
the  vision  of  the  artist  is  sympathetic. 

If  this  is  true,  it  becomes  evident  that  what  seems 
exaggeration  in  Rodin  may  represent  his  clearer  and 
intenser  seeing.  The  note  of  caricature  which  some 
feel  in  Rodin's  heads  of  men  may  be  accounted  for  by 
the  fact  that  they  are  so  accustomed  to  the  conventional 
falseness  of  professional  portraiture  with  its  hollow, 
superficial  masks,  that  a  head  seen  boldly  is  like  a  shock. 
Let  anyone  look  at  the  man  opposite  in  the  subway  or 
even  at  his  own  father,  looking  at  the  head  squarely,  and 
he  will  see  whether  life  is  not  much  more  like  the  tem- 
pestuous "caricatures"  of  Rodin's  sculpture  than  like 
the  usual  retouched  portrait,  wrinkles  removed  while 
you  wait.  Those  who  believe  that  they  have  seen  the 
head  may  find  it  an  interesting  experience  before  they 
look  at  a  Rodin  again  to  let  their  eyes  wander  as  a 
sculptor's  would  over  its  surfaces.  Any  head  will  do. 
In  bulk  it  is  elongated  like  a  pear;  narrow,  sharp 
edged  like  an  axe  blade,  or  cubic  like  a  granite  block. 
27 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

The  forehead  a  broad  arch,  fitful  and  agitated  of  sur- 
face, deeply  cleft  above  the  eyes,  is  sharply  cut  at  the 
sides  to  recede  towards  the  temples.  The  nose  is  large, 
projecting,  the  hard  bone  of  the  bridge  contrasting 
with  the  sensitively  vibrating  tunnelled  nostrils.  The 
adventurous  journey  can  be  continued  through  the  re- 
cessed valleys  undulating  of  surface  in  which  dwell  the 
eyes.  Still  to  be  surveyed  are  the  involved  labyrinth 
of  the  ear,  the  mouth,  rival  of  the  eyes  in  expression 
and  the  sharp  turn  at  the  chin  and  jaw.  Then  back 
of  the  maze  of  the  ear  the  sharp  planes  simpler  and 
larger  of  sweep,  above  which  the  massed  hair  waves 
in  tangled  tumult.  No  one  who  has  once  truly  looked 
at  the  head  of  a  man  will  ever  again  call  the  portraits 
by  Rodin  caricatures,  even  if  the  sculptor  in  his  in- 
terest in  light  and  dark  has  intensified  "the  hole  and 
the  lump." 

The  "Old  Courtesan,"  who,  stirred  by  memories  of 
the  past,  contemplates  her  present  state,  a  withered 
rose  mourning  its  own  decay,  is,  in  the  opinion  of  many, 
an  example  of  ugliness  morbidly  selected  for  portrayal. 
The  artist,  in  the  conception  of  the  people  who  object 
so  strenuously  to  "the  ugly,"  is  like  a  guest  at  the  table 
of  life,  who  must  earn  his  meal  by  saying  pretty  things 
to  his  hostess,  the  public.  He  is  the  entertainer  who 
will  help  digestion  wait  on  appetite,  even  if  need  be  the 
panderer  who  will  give  an  edge  to  desire.  He  must 
remember  his  role.  Seriousness  is  taboo.  But  just  as 
Dante  forgot  his  assigned  part  in  the  "Divine  Comedy," 
just  as  Ibsen  forgot  in  "Ghosts,"  so  Rodin  forgot  in 
the  "Old  Courtesan."  The  perversity  in  these  cases  is 
not  the  artist's  who  accepts  death,  old  age  and 
28 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

brooding  melancholy  as  facts.  Perverse  is  the  mental 
attitude  of  those  who  insist  on  wearing  blinders  and 
rose-tinted  glasses.  Like  Dante  and  like  Ibsen,  Rodin 
saw  the  withering  of  the  body  as  only  a  phase  in  the 
eternal  pulse  of  life  and  death.  And  how  that  pulsation 
moves  him  to  awe  and  wonder. 

The  stamp  of  the  age  is  upon  his  art.  The  theology 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  certain  of  the  future.  The 
aristocratic  renaissance  dallied  with  memories  of  the 
past.  The  nineteenth  century  renounced  the  golden  age 
of  the  court  poets  and  the  heaven  of  the  monks  to  grasp 
more  passionately  at  the  present,  at  the  richest  fulfil- 
ment of  life  here  and  now.  But  in  "The  Age  of 
Bronze,"  in  the  "Adam,"  in  the  "Thinker,"  in  the  "Gate 
of  Hell,"  Rodin  reveals  himself  perplexed  by  the  mys- 
tery of  the  life  which  he  so  reverences.  His  figures 
are  strangely  stirred  by  the  currents  of  energy  which 
pass  through  them,  by  the  fascinating  intimacy  and  cool 
aloofness  of  the  world  about  them,  by  the  subtlety  and 
intensity  of  their  inner  moods. 

The  clenched  hand  pressed  to  the  head  in  the  lightly 
poised  "Age  of  Bronze,"  thrilling  with  some  keenly 
felt  mysterious  awakening;  the  uncomprehending  head 
of  "Adam"  slowly  raising  itself  to  a  position  of  dom- 
inance above  the  perfect  engine  of  his  body  fresh 
wrought  of  earth  and  inspiration,  the  introspective 
mood  of  the  "Old  Courtesan"  meditating  on  youth  and 
the  brevity  of  charm,  the  brooding  "Thinker,"  whose 
massive  body  is  all  tense  with  the  concentration  of  his 
perplexity  as  he  sits  above  the  "Gate  of  Hell."  where 
the  agonized  forms  of  men  and  women  writhe  in  the 
torment  of  the  fevered  struggle  called  life,  these  are 
29 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

all  symbols  of  that  wonder  concerning  life  which  Rodin 
combines  with  his  love  of  its  forms. 

The  "Old  Courtesan"  symbolizes  the  most  terrifying 
phase  of  life,  the  decay  of  vitality,  the  withering  of  the 
body,  the  darkening  of  the  mind,  the  premonitions  of 
death.  The  vivid  realization  of  the  certainty  of  death 
leave  life  differently  colored.  Each  of  us  making  our 
little  bargains  with  life  must  some  day  feel  the  sym- 
bolism and  the  sympathetic  realism  of  that  statue. 
There  are  few  great  works  of  art  inspired  by  the 
themes  of  death.  "The  Old  Courtesan"  may  be  ranked 
with  these.  Far  more  sombre  than  the  mediaeval  "Dance 
of  Death,"  with  death  the  reaper  gathering  in  his  har- 
vesting, the  bride  at  her  wedding,  the  sculptor  at  his 
chisel,  the  mother  nursing  her  babe,  is  this  figure  in 
which  Death  is  singing  sad  memories  of  youth  into  the 
ears  of  old  age. 

Now  what  can  be  said  to  those  who,  looking  at  so 
profoundly  stirring  a  work,  discover  that  the  arms 
are  overlong?  It  is  not  their  fault  if  the  theory  of  the 
artist  as  an  anatomist  who  draws  and  models  "cor- 
rectly" has  displaced  the  conception  of  the  artist  as 
one  who  uses  the  material  he  loves  to  express  his  feel- 
ing about  life.  Rodin  finds  the  same  weird  beauty  in 
the  gesture  and  detailed  modelling  of  the  gaunt  old 
body  as  a  great  landscape  painter  like  Ryder  might 
have  found  in  a  storm-swept,  devastated  scene.  Mere 
photographic  imitation,  line  for  line,  would  not  suffice 
to  reproduce  the  mood  any  more  than  a  phonographic 
reproduction  of  the  actual  conversations  in  a  given 
tragedy  in  life  would  convey  the  conflict  which  is  the 
essence  of  the  art  of  the  drama.  A  touch  of  exag- 
30 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

geration,  and  of  emphasis  in  the  parallelism  of  the 
tense,  gaunt,  long  lines  is  essential  to  the  mood  and  its 
carrying  power.  This  deliberate  exaggeration  of  the 
elements  of  expression  is  found  in  all  the  arts  from  the 
folk  song  of  old  to  a  drama  by  Shakespeare  or  a  sym- 
phony of  Beethoven.  Yet  academic  criticism  in  the  case 
of  painting  and  sculpture  has  succeeded  in  obscuring 
this  fact  in  the  effort  to  justify  the  pretty,  smooth, 
polished  "finish"  of  the  "correctly"  modelled  figure. 

Great  artists  of  all  times  have  frequently  strained 
at  the  leash  of  form,  in  their  eagerness  to  obtain  a 
fuller  expressiveness.  The  orchestra  seemed  too  small 
for  the  symphonies  in  the  ear  of  Beethoven,  marble 
too  cold  for  the  vision  of  Angelo,  words  too  definite 
for  the  moods  of  Poe.  Rodin,  like  Angelo,  sometimes 
saw  in  the  rough-hewn  block  as  he  worked  over  it  that 
power  of  suggestion  and  completeness  of  design  which 
further  work  would  only  dwarf  and  limit.  He  accepted 
the  hints  which  the  material  gave  him.  Just  as  in 
"The  Hand  of  God"  so  delicately  sensitive,  so  mag- 
ically skilful,  so  intelligently  powerful  the  figures  of 
Man  and  Woman  curled  like  two  petals  barely  disen- 
gage themselves  from  the  rough  earth  of  which  they 
are  moulded,  so  in  many  of  the  statues  by  Rodin  his 
own  creations  barely  emerge  from  the  stone  which 
envelops  them. 

Expressiveness  and  not  finish  is  his  ideal.  In  "The 
Kiss,"  ex;ecuted  shortly  before  the  "Balzac,"  he  proved 
himself  master  of  the  most  highly  polished  delicacy 
of  surface,  all  a-tremble  with  the  quiver  of  tender 
love.  But  the  "Balzac,"  when  it  emerged  in  the  rough 
as  a  huge  monolith,  a  mighty,  towering  block,  seemed 

31 


AUGUSTE  RODIX 

to  him  complete  in  its  mood  as  well  as  in  its  structure, 
and  so  was  left  free  from  the  elaboration  of  separately 
wrought  folds,  hands  and  similar  inconsequentials. 
Every  detail  which  he  might  have  added  would  have 
reduced  the  force  of  that  "Balzac"  just  so  much.  That 
his  lack  of  finish  was  not  due  to  sheer  laziness  should 
be  proved  to  those  who  require  proof  by  the  fact  that 
Rodin  made  preliminary  studies  in  the  nude  before 
proceeding  to  model  the  draped  figure. 

Yet  when  the  statue  was  exhibited  at  the  Salon  the 
sensational  outburst  of  abuse  which  it  aroused  was 
probably  the  most  trying  ordeal  which  any  sculptor 
in  the  last  century  was  called  upon  to  face.  Its  rugged 
simplicity  struck  the  critics  and  the  crowd  as  such  a 
stupid  jest,  that  cafe  singers  sang  scurrilous  songs  about 
him  in  the  cabarets,  street  comedians  aimed  their  vile 
shafts  at  him,  and  statuettes  of  Rodin  himself  mod- 
elled as  a  snowman,  in  imitation  of  his  statue,  were 
sold  like  Billikens  in  the  shops.  It  would  seem  that 
oflFending  against  the  idol  of  finish  and  detail  is  an 
artist's  worst  crime  in  the  eyes  of  the  uncritical.  It  is 
quite  likely  if  these  had  been  called  on  the  seventh  day 
to  criticize  the  Creation  they  would  have  denied  its 
beauty  for  the  lack  of  polish  on  a  mountainside. 

Another  of  Rodin's  statues  which  has  provoked  much 
difference  of  opinion  is  "The  Thinker,"  which  is  fre- 
quently complained  of  as  too  muscular  and  huge  to 
represent  a  man  of  thought.  But  Rodin  was  not  fash- 
ioning a  modern  "intellectual,"  bespectacled  and  anaemic. 
Comparison  with  Angelo's  "II  Penseroso"  reveals  how 
much  more  thoughful  and  concentrated  of  effort  is  this 
massive  brooder.  The  baffled  intensity  of  his  desire 
32 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

to  grasp  the  key  to  the  mystery  of  life  is  expressed 
not  only  in  the  head  with  its  troubled  eye  and  mouth 
beneath  the  overhanging  clouded  brow,  in  the  support- 
ing hand  upon  which  the  chin  rests  firmly  the  set  jaw 
clenched  against  it,  the  great  shoulders  and  trunk 
straining  forward  towards  the  truth,  but  even  in  the 
very  toes  which  grip  the  earth  and  convey  the  power 
to  pivot  the  whole  body  into  action  towards  an  end, 
when  once  that  end  has  been  grasped. 

The  Middle  Ages  had  also  symbolized  the  perplexity 
of  man  in  the  presence  of  the  spiritual  problem^  of  life 
through  a  gigantic  figure  in  the  legend  of  Christopher. 
This  giant,  so  large  of  mould  that  a  tree  trunk  served 
him  as  a  staff,  went  through  the  world  seeking  a  fear- 
less king,  whom  he  would  serve.  When  the  Oriental 
monarch,  whom  he  thought  a  dauntless  master,  trem- 
bled at  the  mention  of  the  devil.  Christopher  transferred 
his  allegiance  and  went  in  search  of  him  whom  the 
king  had  feared.  He  soon  found  the  devil  at  the  head 
of  a  tremendous  army  of  followers  and  served  him  until 
he  observed  that  every  time  they  passed  a  crucifix  along 
the  roadside  the  devil  grew  pale.  Saint  Christopher  now 
set  out  in  search  of  Christ,  whom  the  devil  feared. 
Two  monks  of  whom  he  inquired  his  way  told  him 
that  only  through  prayer  could  Christ  be  found.  But 
the  giant  in  his  great  strength  did  not  know  what  prayer 
meant.  At  their  suggestion,  however,  he  used  his 
strength  to  serve  through  action  by  helping  distressed 
-wanderers  across  a  dangerous  mountain  stream.  One 
night  in  the  storm  he  found  a  crying  child  near  the 
river's  edge  whom  he  placed  upon  his  shoulder  to  carry 
it  across  to  shelter.  But  as  he  reached  midstream  the 
33    . 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

giant  found  his  whole  body  giving  beneath  the  weight 
of  the  child.  As  his  muscles  grew  more  and  more 
tense  he  thought  to  himself,  "It  is  strange  that  I,  who 
have  carried  great  loads  without  effort,  should  be 
weighed  down  by  so  light  a  burden."  Then,  as  though 
the  child  had  read  his  mind,  it  answered  his  query, 
"Be  not  surprised  that  you  are  bent  down  by  my 
weight,  for  in  carrying  me  you  are  carrying  the  weight 
of  the  world."  Rodin's  "Thinker"  is  another  Chris- 
topher, a  physical  giant,  whose  whole  strength  avails 
him  not  as  he  bends  beneath  the  weight  of  the  world. 
In  the  presence  of  the  mystery  of  life  and  death  the 
strongest  and  the  weakest  are  one. 

Though  the  thinker  doubts,  the  lovers  in  the  fresh 
ardor  of  youth  grasp  at  the  fleeting  moments  which 
seem  to  give  purpose  to  life.  Their  adoration,  their 
embrace,  their  hunger  for  life,  he  has  modelled  again 
and  again  both  in  the  free  abandon  of  the  pagan  in 
satyrs  madly  kissing,  laughing,  struggling  nymphs,  and 
in  the  more  self-conscious  absorption  of  modern  love, 
tender,  reverent  and  finely  sensuous.  The  theme  of 
the  love  of  man  and  woman  fascinated  him  quite  pos- 
sibly because  it  is  a  source  of  so  many  naturally  com- 
plete groupings  of  two  figures.  To  compose  two  fig- 
ures into  a  unit,  the  gestures  mutually  completing  one 
another,  requires  the  themes  of  combat,  of  mother  love, 
of  the  love  of  the  man  and  woman.  The  Greeks  in 
their  wrestlers,  Angelo  in  his  "Madonna  and  the  Dead 
Christ,"  had  wrought  powerful  groups  from  the  former 
themes.  Rodin  in  his  Brother  and  Sister  created  a 
group  of  the  quieter  and  gentler  affection.  But  in  a 
long  series  of  works,  many  of  which  have  never  been 
34 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

publicly  exhibited,  Rodin  glorified  the  themes  of  love. 

It  was  only  to  be  expected  that  he  should  on 
that  account  be  labelled  erotic,  and  even  obscene  by 
some,  an  English  critic  having  gone  so  far  as  to  say 
that  the  French  stomach  toughened  by  Zola  might  put 
up  with  Rodin,  but  it  could  hardly  be  expected  that 
the  English  would  tolerate  him.  It  was  this  charge 
which  Stevenson  replied  to  in  a  spirited  letter,  in  which 
he  pointed  out  that  Rodin  was  absolutely  free  from 
any  false  pandering  tricks,  that  his  statues  were  simple 
expressions  of  the  beauty  of  love. 

There  are  those  who  would  expurgate  the  body  if 
not  from  life,  at  least  from  art,  as  belonging  to  that 
side  of  man's  nature  which  is  lesser  and  unworthy. 
This  mystic  devotion  to  higher  things  is  quite  fre- 
quently the  hallmark  of  the  impotent,  eager  to  place 
restraints  upon  youth  and  its  wholesome  vitality.  Ro- 
din, like  Whitman  in  his  "Leaves  of  Grass,"  opens  the 
gateway  of  art  to  the  theme  of  love  treated  as  frankly 
and  as  reverentially  as  are  the  themes  of  toil,  of  re- 
bellion, of  war  and  death.  In  so  doing  he  has  en- 
riched the  content  of  sculpture  by  some  of  its  most 
beautiful  groups. 

By  comparison  with  the  range  of  expression  and 
gesture  in  Rodin's  works  almost  every  other  sculptor 
seems  like  a  musician  playing  one  tune.  Even  the 
mighty  Angelo  did  not  manifest  the  range  of  action 
and  mood  present  in  Rodin.  In  "The  Burghers  ©f 
Calais,"  those  six  citizens  of  the  old  city  self-elected 
to  surrender  themselves  to  death  so  that  their  city  may 
be  saved,  Rodin  had  been  commissioned  to  do  a  single 
figure,  but  the  theme  as  recorded  in  the  old  chronicles 
35 


AUGUSTE  RODIN 

so  moved  him  that  he  determined  to  render  it  dramat- 
ically in  a  complete  group.  He  had  rendered  love,  in 
which  two  forms  are  bound  by  a  single  impulse,  subtly 
varied  and  yet  blending ;  but  here  was  a  theme  in  which 
six  figures  become  a  unit,  through  the  binding  power 
of  group  feeling,  of  civic  pride  and  love  of  their  fellow- 
men.  Those  burghers  of  old  he  portrayed  in  a  work 
quite  simply  human,  free  from  the  heroics  of  the  center 
stage,  eloquent  instead  of  the  fine  gesture  which  comes 
from  the  nobility  of  the  mind.  As  they  walk  slowly 
through  the  streets  to  surrender  themselves  to  death 
the  character  of  each  and  his  attitude  towards  the 
event  and  towards  the  end  expresses  itself  in  the  car- 
riage of  the  whole  body.  Richly  contrasting  as  their 
moods  and  movements  are,  they  are  nonetheless  actors 
in  a  common  drama,  sustained  by  and  sustaining  one 
another.  The  lines  and  forms  of  the  group  interrelate 
with  the  effect  of  a  beautiful  dirge,  and  one  almost  hears 
the  triumphal  strains  of  a  funeral  march  mingled  with 
the  weeping  of  children  as  these  men  silently  pass  on- 
ward. 

That  group  which  Rodin  wished  to  have  erected  in 
the  heart  of  Calais  was  placed  near  the  sea,  to  be 
dwarfed  by  its  ample  horizons.  But  who  can  persuade 
the  minds  of  men  to-day  that  the  designer  and  the 
sculptor  know  principles  of  light  and  dark,  of  scale 
and  setting,  as  immutable  as  the  laws  of  nature,  and 
that  their  knowledge  should  be  respected  in  planning 
the  surface  aspects  of  life? 

In  a  world  of  large  cities,  cumbered  with  outrage- 
ously rhetorical  statues,  devoid  of  enchantment  of  sur- 
face, beauty  of  action,  or  nobility  of  form,  the  works 

36 


AUGUS  TE  RODIN 

of  Rodin  are  crowded  into  the  narrow  hallways  of 
museums,  or  placed  without  regard  for  setting  in  the 
homes  of  the  wealthy.  Very  rare  were  the  occasions 
when  his  statues  were  direct  commissions  for  pubHc 
monuments.  Even  in  Paris  there  are  only  three  of  his 
statues  in  the  open.  Rodin  has  passed  away,  but  it  is 
not  too  late  to  give  to  his  larger  works  the  place  that 
they  were  meant  to  have,  to  enable  them  to  mingle 
their  lives  with  ours  in  the  busv  "jquares  of  the  city, 
to  mingle  their  reveries  and  douDts,  their  passions  and 
their  hopes  with  ours,  in  the  play  of  sunlight  and  of 
shadow  in  our  public  parks. 


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